Sharon Baker is attempting to construct a Christian belief in the afterlife, particularly hell, that squares somehow with the unconditional love of God and the fundamental verse she continually mentions:
2:3 Such prayer for all is good and welcomed before God our Savior, 2:4 since he wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy).
In some ways her study puts onto the table the necessity of explaining hell once one admits that God genuinely wants all to be saved. How does one explain it? Is God not powerful enough? Or is God not good enough? How can God be both altogether good and altogether powerful and create a hell that lasts forever. So, she’s asking where the goodness of God is in all this.
In Sharon Baker’s Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You’ve Been Taught About God’s Wrath and Judgment
In your own study and thinking what are the biggest issues for belief in a traditional view of hell — that God will punish sinners or non-Christians, with no hope of redemption, endlessly for the sin of not believing in Christ? Or, which of the seven below are the most challenging for you?
1. Theodicy: how does God deal with evil if it, in effect, exists for ever in a hell-state? Does evil not continue to exist, even in spite of the statement in Revelation 21:1-4 that death and suffering will be no more? So, the issue here is squaring God’s goodness with eternal evil.
2. Eternal hopelessness: a traditional hell does not permit any hope after death for anyone, including those who have never heard. Is there a law that says God’s grace can only be active in the temporal sphere — that is, during our physical lifetime?
3. Eternal evil: does not the traditional view entail the view that God never really does purge his world of evil?
4. Justice vs. Love: the issue here is an old one. If God is love, how does justice fit in with that love. Is God ambivalent or split? An image of God that emerges for many is a cruel father who guides people to think of eternal punishment as an act of love.
5. Eternal divine violence: assumptions are that punishment is an act of violence and eternal punishment would mean God is eternally violent. She connects this view of God with acts of violence in history. She thinks God’s violence contradicts God’s love.
6. Retributive justice: again, a major issue is that God’s justice in the Bible — in Christ — is restorative but hell is a belief in a retributive justice that never becomes restorative.
7. Eternal punishment for temporal sin: how can it be just to punish a human being, who sinned temporally — that is over a life time (and no more), for an eternity for that temporal sin?
Scot,
Here’s the part of Hell that bothers me (and I suspect most others as well) the most:
“what are the biggest issues for belief in a traditional view of hell — that God will punish sinners or non-Christians, with no hope of redemption, endlessly for the sin of not believing in Christ?”
It would be the “for the sin of not believing in Christ” bit. I know there has been a lot of discussion so far on the nature of Hell, and I do find that important and interesting. However, I think that, given what we know of belief formation within a community, one has to wonder why the criteria for ending up in hell is belief in the first place. The Sheep and the Goats passage looks to make a lot more sense in pinning one’s eternal fate on than belief that is so largely determined by the community and not the individual in many circumstances.
I agree with Tim – what disturbs me the most is the idea of eternal suffering and hopelessness for the “sin” of not believing, belonging to the institutional church or saying a sinners prayer; having never heard about the Christian gospel.
This simply cannot be right and it is not just – Augustine, Original Sin, and the autocratic will of God not withstanding.
What is “a traditional view of Hell”? What comes to mind is Dante but I know that isn’t close.
Joel, you’re right, Dante has a lot to answer for in terms of shaping our imagery of “hell”!!
@ Tim #1,
I agree. Do you have any idea why the idea that “belief” is salvific is not the same thing as gnosticism?
Scot, do you know? I’m genuinely interested in exploring whether we verge on gnosticism any time our focus becomes solely on belief/right ideas/right knowledge.
To point number 4 – Justice vs. Love – I think Paul gives us a lot of insight about this issue in Romans 3.
My conflict came in trying to understand Micah 6:8. With my judicial understanding of justice I was conflicted about how I could do justice and love mercy as they seemed, in my senses, to be incompatible.
But Paul says this:
Romans 3:23-26 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Jesus went to the cross, and act of mercy, to demonstrate God’s justice.
God’s justice is deeply tied to mercy. Any understanding we have of hell has to be understood through the cross.
JoeyS,
No. All philosophies and religions have “knowledge” as the more or less central element, but that does not make them “gnostic.” I hear this critique often and it is uninformed so let me say it another way: gnosticism is a strong dualism and there were a limited number of folks who were in on the secret, but what makes gnosticism “gnostic” is not just that it believed in special ideas but what those ideas were — demiurge, creation as bad, etc..
But at the core of religions is a truth perception that can be called “knowledge” or “truth” and thus there is a “gnostic” (knowledge-ish) component.
To call Catholicism or Evangelicalism “gnostic” is wide of the mark. Believing certain things to be true and necessary does not make one a gnostic.
Scot,
Thanks, that helps to clarify. How does our understanding of knowledge and truth shift with Jesus’ proclamation that he is the Truth?
I guess this is a digression, I’m just being curious with ideas I’ve not explored in depth.
I always thought I was orthodox but I can’t say I believe in the “traditional” view of hell as I see it spelled out.
I also don’t understand some of Baker’s issues that sound more like semantics than theology.
I’ve listened to speakers recount their “experiences” in hell and despite their earnestness I can’t help but laugh out loud. Clearly Dante has won the competition for defining hell.
The biggest issue for me is the ‘eternal’ aspect of hell. But then I’d be lying if I actually understood ‘eternal’ in the context of any future state.
We tend to have too sharp a focus on Sin as the main driving power behind the overall picture of God and Man, doing our theology, as it were, from the bottom up. The Bible starts the discussion, however, from the top down with “In the beginning, God.” Once we get on board with this, we may see more clearly that the question is not one of trying to decide how bad sin is and what it rightfully deserves (as if living in the middle of the Problem made us the more objective!). The question is of who, and what, God is, and how he addresses our “condition.” God has made a way for our salvation – not just as a sparing-from-hell, but as a purging of the seeds of hell from within our own natures. To say that for any to refuse, and receive the outcome of that decision, is God’s fault, well, are we saying that God is not God if real results come from real decisions, or do we think it would be more loving for God to rape our consciousnesses and force a foreign nature of righteousness onto us? If the first, then are we not human-ising God into our own image? If the second, then why would we not expect that change to be forced on us, say, at birth? Life on earth would be a lot nicer without crime, lust, greed, etc., don’t you think? This does not happen, and we have only a Pollyannish “hope-so” as basis for thinking he will force such a change on the on the unwilling in the future. Might it be an option to read, and consider, the rest of the picture offered us in the Bible?
Point number 2 is the sticking point for me. The “once to die and then the judgment” verse just isn’t adequate proof that we have to hear and decide before we die. Proof that we only die once, yes (Lazarus and the others raised from the dead excepted, I guess….), but not proof that we must repent before death.
Scott, it seems to me that where evangelicalism is potentially like gnosticism is in its core narrative about God sending his Son from heaven into the world to deliver people from the sinfulness of a fallen world with the ultimate prospect of taking them from this world back to heaven with him. That is implicitly dualistic and can easily be confused with gnostic Redeemer myths. What Christ brings in this story is not saving knowledge (I agree with you there) but saving faith, but the plot is otherwise very similar.
Andrew, but Gnosticism perverts the narrative of Phil 2 or the Father sending Son of John.
I’m convinced the accusation of Gnosticism is cheap rhetoric and not grounded in good historical work. The similarities are overstuffed by radical differences.
keo (#10) – I agree. Luke 16:26 is also used to assert that there can be no repentance after death. (“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’”) But Jesus himself “went” across the chasm after his crucifixion (1 Peter 3:19) and “preached the gospel” (1 Peter 4:6, ESV, which follows the Greek closely), so one is not justified in using the Luke passage to close the door in such a way that not even Jesus can open it.
@ #13, Mark
Agreed. I struggle using that parable to explain anything other than Jesus’ intent – don’t neglect the poor. I don’t think it was an exposition on heaven or hell.
The “traditional” view of hell is not that traditional. It’s fairly new, actually. Certainly, if you go back to the early church, which was largely Jewish, the idea of eternal torment would have been ridiculous to them, as it should be to those who give the modern notion of hell any serious thought.
Hell, as mentioned in the comments, is far more closely allied with English lit than theology.
Another question, how far does the church have to go before they are far enough away from their roots so as to be completely indistinguishable from the original Jewish tree. Seems to me that most Christians, especially in fundamentalist/charismatic (and yes, evangelical churches), hover around paganism and other old movements like Donatism without realizing it. The idea that Yahweh would burn someone for all eternity is another one.
Stephen,
Your history needs some work. First, Jesus uses the expression “eternal torment” in Matt 25. Yes, yes, it needs careful study; it needs to be seen as part of a parable, but the fact is that folks saw that verse’s terms and it grew.
Second, Judaism itself deserves careful attention and I suggest you read Dale Allison’s essay — it’s in his book on resurrection.
While some of our imagery comes from Dante or Bunyan or Puritans or Edwards, that doesn’t mean they invented them. The Book of Revelation is not exactly tame in its imagery of final judgment.
I think at times the questions do not paint the whole picture. For instance she speaks of God’s restorative justice, but fails to address the clear teaching of God punishing nations in time and of God declaring that after this world He will take vengeance on certain people.
In fact as Christians it is one of the reasons why we do not take vengeance on those who harm us. This would also go with idea of violence. Thus to remove that from hell, seems to be also removing some of the clear teaching of Scripture.
As to God wanting all men to be saved as her main thrust, I think the accusation that God is not powerful enough is false logic. It is like saying that God isn’t powerful enough to make a four-sided triangle. No amount of power can do that because it is a contradiction. In the same way, if someone believes in free-will then no amount of power would make it where God would force all humans to be saved.
Finally, as to the idea that the Hebrews did not believe in eternal punishment, I would have to agree based upon what I’ve read of intertestmental writing. Also I always think it is a fallacy to assume the Hebrew belief was monolith on a subject.
http://www.studyyourbibleonline.com
Of the issues listed here, the one that is the biggest problem for me is retributive vs restorative justice. Jesus lived a life of restoration, and he taught his followers to live lives of restoration. If Jesus is the highest revelation of the character of God, I can’t imagine that this same God will, at the end of the day, resort to retributive justice of the most violent kind.
Other problems I see that aren’t listed here:
- The total lack of Old Testament attention to the notion of hell (and, for that matter, heaven): If a place of eternal conscious torment existed, why didn’t God see fit to mention that in the first two thirds of the Bible, and the first 2000 or so years of his relationship with his people? Seems like an important detail to leave out. Is it just a coincidence that the idea of hell as it is commonly understood only gained traction in the Jewish community after they lived amongst the Persians, where Zoroastrianism and other belief systems had an influence on them?
- The nature of the teaching on hell: Most of the hell teachings are found in parables. Yes, parables metaphorically point to true realities, but there is not a one-to-one correspondence on each element of the parable. The fact that Jesus used the word Gehenna – a real place outside of Jerusalem – shows that he was speaking metaphorically. The extent to which it was metaphorical is open to debate, but this is where we use his demonstrated character as a guide. Is an everlasting torture chamber consistent with the character of God as revealed in Jesus?
Furthermore, in most of the parables it was not “the sinner” or “the one who never heard the gospel” who was destined for hell, but the hypocritical religious person. We don’t often hear this preached.
Glen #18, Good points. Also, that Jesus said so many things to the larger groups (of non-leaders or hypocrites) that seem cruelly trivial if most of his audience was going to wind up in hell. Why preach on tithing and being anxious and how to live today if what they really needed was to get on the “narrow way” of correct belief about Jesus to avoid eternal torment in a fiery hell?
“Eternal punishment for temporal sin: how can it be just to punish a human being, who sinned temporally — that is over a life time (and no more), for an eternity for that temporal sin?”
Who says people in hell won’t continue to sin? If people continue to live in rebellion against God, even after death, then hell is a punishment for both past and ongoing transgressions.
I raise this point because in Luke 16, the rich man in Hades seems to retain the same evil qualities that landed him in torment.
Scot (#16) — but it is entirely fair to point out that the “traditional” view of Hell being discussed here is more fairly characterized as the “Augustinian” view of Hell. While Hell is a Biblical theme and not merely a later invention, the understanding of exactly who might be there and whether there is any chance of escape from it was not entirely settled for the early Fathers. I think our efforts to talk about this in the present day must involve some recovery of early Patristic thought, including the apokastasis tradition, and not concede off the bat that the Augustinian view is “the traditional view.”
We should also be clear that the Augustinian tradition developed in response some of these very concerns. The notions of Limbo, Purgatory, and levels of punishment in Hell became robust through the time of the Scholastics. While some of these ornaments were stripped away by the Reformers, some remained in modified form — particularly the notion that “elect infants” as well as “other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called” can be saved (Westminster Confession X.III.) The Augustinian Hell tradition in Catholic theology then, of course, underwent further significant revision in Vatican II, reflecting Balthasaar’s theology to a significant degree.
So, the notion that everyone who doesn’t hear of Christ suffers equal eternal torment in Hell as, say, Hitler, simply is not really the “traditional” view. The Tradition as a whole is much, much more nuanced than this.
Scot and others, what is your understanding of the Greek word ‘aionios’, translated ‘eternal’? As I mentioned in response to the first post in this series, my Greek prof called it a ‘slippery’ word. I know it literally means ‘of the age’. Does that require that it carries the full character of the age it describes (ie: unending, when speaking of the coming Kingdom of God), or can it also have a lesser meaning of a location in time (that is, a finite judgment/torment that will occur in the future infinite age)? It has always interested me that the NIV translates the word as ‘eternal’ in every spot except for 2 Thessalonians 1:9, where we read of “everlasting destruction.”
I’m not sure why some on this thread seem to think that Jesus’ character is not in keeping with Hell. Part of it, I think, comes from seeing Christ only in the Gospels (and selected parts of those). But there are other places in Scripture where the Son is portrayed, and they are perfectly in keeping with a God of Judgment.
1) I’m not sure about this myself, but if the “Commander of the Army of the LORD” in Joshua 5:13-15 is the pre-incarnate Christ, then it was he who gave many of the commands for the razing of Jericho (and other cities). Christ of judgment?
2) In Daniel 7:9-14, the Son of Man is given authority and power and worship only after the formal judgment by the Ancient of Days. Christ of judgment?
3) Lastly, Revelation 19:11-21 portrays the Son as one who “treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God almighty.” Christ of judgment?
To answer Scot’s question, I find #3 to be the most challenging to me. I can only suggest that evil will only be extinguished in the New Heavens and the New Earth, not beyond it. I view this question as I view the question of the origin of evil; we don’t know, and the Bible doesn’t tell us.
It seems to me that there must be some sort of separation between the end states of our lives for the simple reason that the evil people will make life (or is it death?) miserable for the good people. So there has to be a division.
The problem for me is then an issue with Number 2 – Eternal hopelessness.
I don’t have a problem with the others namely because if you had all the evil people and none of the good people together then it would certainly be an eternal torment of some sort. I don’t know what the rules of engagement would be in this torment, but I don’t particularly think that God would actually have to be doing the tormenting.
But, eternal hopelessness does seem to be against the character of our loving, forgiving God and I don’t believe that could be true.
@Brian M #8 I think most here would agree that a traditional view of hell is not the starting point of orthodox Christian faith. And as Joel in #3 asks, what is a traditional view? Is it Dante? IMO, as long as you are avoiding the, I’m ok, we’re all ok universalist approach , I think there is a fair amount of grey on this very troubling doctrine.
@Taylor G (#25)
To be fair, I think there are some universalists who argue that Christ’s sacrifice was necessary for people to be saved. It’s just that they think everyone will eventually believe in Him at some point. So I don’t think some of them would agree with the “I’m ok, we’re all ok” approach, either.
Ben (#23) — a Christ of Judgment is one thing. A Christ whose judgments are unjust is quite another.
Clearly, it would be unjust if an infant who dies in infancy experiences the same judgment as Hitler. I can’t imagine that anyone would try to argue otherwise. Very early on the Augustinian Hell tradition was modified to include an infant’s Limbo (Augustine thought unbaptized infants went to Hell), and the Calvinist Reformers recognized that infants could be among the elect, because of the obvious injustice that would otherwise be attributed to Christ the Judge. Even the hardest of hard restrictivists today usually will acknowledge that infants who die in infancy don’t automatically go to Hell.
So — I think you’re absolutely right that, Biblically, Christ is both the infinitely compassionate redeemer and the terrible judge. But the question remains whether the popular (I will not misuse the word “traditional” here) view of Hell accords with the requirement that Christ the Judge is perfectly just.
@dopderbeck #21 Right on, and this is one of the problems with being protestant; we can’t develop our theology nor can we properly determine whose view of scripture is the ultimate one.
Thank God for Balthasar, and for his orthodox yet softened tone on hell. I might be insane had it not been for that guy and for Vatican II’s acceptance of his theology.
@Justin B #26 I know this thought well. I even tried adopting it at one point, but honestly I think it’s beyond orthodox to say all will eventually be saved even if Christ’s sacrifice was necessary. It’s flat out to far, and it rips the urgency from our call to conversion and faith in Jesus.
Scott, I fully take your point about cheap rhetoric, but it still seems to me that evangelicalism is prone to a dualistic way of thinking that in certain respects is closer to gnosticism than to the New Testament.
The whole discussion about hell illustrates the point. For us it has become an argument about personal metaphysics. For the New Testament, as for the Old, the issue was concrete historical judgment on peoples and cultures. The wages of sin was destruction, death – and ultimately the second death represented by the lake of fire. There is continuity of imagery and language, as you note, but the referent and, indeed, worldview, has changed radically.
BUT, like I’ve mentioned here a million times, I believe it’s orthodox to HOPE for the salvation of all and to believe it as very remote possibility. But saying definitely that we know for sure God will save all is out of bounds and flies in the face of gospel and everything we read in scripter AND tradition of the church.
(This was the crux of Balthasar’s views on the matter)
Scot #16. you reference Jesus use of “eternal torment” in Matthew 25. And, yes, it requires careful study, as you say. The Greek phrase [transliterated] kolasin aionion could just as well be translated “eon of purification.” The Greek noun aion usually refers to a period of limited duration (an “age” or “eon”), and the adjective aionios usually means “age-long.” Aionios derives its sense of duration from the noun it is connected with. When applied to God, it usually does mean eternal or timeless.
When Paul speaks of a “mystery that was kept secret for long ages (kronois aioniois) but is now disclosed (Ro 16:25-26), he clearly supposes that an age enduring mystery or a mystery that endures for “eternal times” can come to an end. So also, one might argue, can an age-enduring punishment. [from The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbot pgs. 87-88]
William Barclay wrote that “in all Greek literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment… It was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of vines to make them grow better… Eternal punishment is literally that kind of remedial punishment which it befits God to give and which only God can give.” [A Spiritual Biography p. 66]
David,
I myself would refrain from asserting that infants go to heaven automatically, because I can’t see it anywhere in Scripture. All we can say is that God is good, merciful, and just, and therefore what He does in the case of infants is right.
An answer to your question about how God can be Just and yet punish eternally is that Adam’s sin, rebellion, which we all inherit, is enough to damn eternally. It’s not how much we offend, but how high a dignity that we offend that matters.
I just don’t think a God who knows our hearts, minds, histories, families of origin, pain, longings, etc. couldn’t come up with a way to individually appeal to the heart of a person he so desperately wants relationship with. A thoughtful atheist, does NOT “get it” and then decide to “reject it.” If God loves that atheist as much as he loves each Christian, he, like a loving parent or spouse, knows the key to that person’s heart. Sure, there is “will.”
The atheist is not “choosing hell.” It might be easier to think that the atheist has a complete understanding of God, Jesus, salvation, sin, etc. and is just going to opt out. That’s just not so.
I can’t help but think…
How awful is it we are even HAVING a discussion about people deserving hell? Not one of us gets to decide if someone goes to hell! And who would want to? Or maybe we do. Maybe we would like to create a personal hell for people and we NEED to be sure that, since we can’t, God’s going to? The whole NOTION of hell should sadden us. The whole NOTION of any living being suffering eternally should make our compassionate, (Christ-like????) hearts BREAK.
This is exactly the point where I can’t reconcile a loving, compassionate, sacrificial to the point of DEATH Savior with the idea of hell. It’s like saying I’m a mother who, in order to save my daughter’s life, stepped in front of a speeding car and died. I’m that loving of am other. But guess what? If my child doesn’t believe/have faith in me in this certain way and “get” that my sacrifice meant such-and-such, on the other side of this life, I’m going to personally torture my beloved child and make sure she suffers for eternity.
I could put out the fires of hell. I could stand in front of the “car” again. But no, suddenly my loving mother-nature is out the window and my child is supposed to believe that I’ll-torture-my-beloved-child nature is equally as loving?
It completely and totally negates the compassionate/sacrificial acts I did to “save” my child my stepping in front of the car. And if my child KNEW that there was this “thing” he/she had to believe in order to avoid me torturing him/her for all eternity, how is it possible for that child to purely, sincerely love me? Or for that matter, how can that child POSSIBLY believe that that stepping in front of the car for them was loving or sacrificial?
We’ve all experienced conditional love. It HURTS. I think once love is expressed in a conditional way (if you don’t….I’ll kill you/send you to hell/not want a relationship with you anymore), real love and sincere movement toward that person, from the heart, is IMPOSSIBLE. How do you sincerely love the person holding the knife with which to kill you? How do you accept love from someone who, if you don’t_________, they’re going to turn their back on you, not just today, but for all eternity.
A loving God and a hell allowed by (created by, even!) that all-powerful God are mutually-exclusive.
please forgive my spelling/grammatical errors above. This whole discussion makes me deeply-emotional and evidently, not able to edit my own writing adequately!
Ben #23, like dopderbeck #27, I wouldn’t claim that judgment is incompatible with the character of Christ, but judgment doesn’t necessarily entail eternal conscious torment. The question is, what is the ultimate aim of judgment – punishment or restoration – and what form does the judgment take? I think Scripture leaves open various possibilities, and in determining between them I look to the character of Jesus as seen in the gospels to guide my thinking.
Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
I take that to mean that the incarnated Christ is God’s highest self-revelation, so when we come to the prophets and other Scriptures, they must be interpreted through the lens of what we see in the life of Jesus. Particularly when it comes to the likes of Daniel and Revelation, steeped in symbolism as they are.
So, I fully accept that there will be judgment. (So too does the author of the book that we’re discussing, by the way). But what I see in Jesus leads me to believe that even in judgment, God’s aim is to restore and reconcile.
Ben (#32) — with respect to the question of infants, I think your theological method is flawed. There are lots of things not expressly stated in scripture that we can infer from scripture and from what scripture says about God. In fact, there are lots of things not expressly or even implicitly stated in scripture that we must accept for theology to be coherent — including the scope of the canon of scripture! (Moreover, the Reformed view is that all “elect infants” do go to heaven automatically — the question then is only the scope of that election).
The original sin response is the Augustinian response, and it must be part of the discussion, but it really doesn’t fully answer the “justice” question.
Scripture says each human being is the product of Divine will (Ps. 139). Your view, then, implies that it is just for God to specifically create a person who inherits Hell from Adam before that person ever makes any kind of volitional choice — and that if the person never has any opportunity for any kind of volitional choice, it remains just for God to condemn that person to Hell. That does not seem consistent with justice.
Moreover, the notion of inherited guilt as a basis for justice and judgment is deeply problematic Biblically. How is it that in John’s vision of final judgment, “each person was judged according to what he had done” (Rev. 20:13) if God actually judges infants who die in infancy (and the rest of us) based only on what Adam did?
You could appeal to Romans 9:14-18 here. This is, to be sure, a strong statement of God’s sovereignty. However, it can’t be read outside the entire context of Romans, including 2:6-7: “God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” Even in the example given in Romans 9:17, that of Pharaoh, the OT witness makes clear that Pharaoh chose evil even as God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. And the concluding point of this section (9:22-29) is to explain to Paul’s Jewish readers why God accepted the Gentiles.
In short — the Biblical witness concerning original sin, election, human free will, final judgment, and God’s justice is rich and complex — it can’t and shouldn’t be reduced to something so simplistic as “we deserve Hell because of Adam, Q.E.D.”).
(Actually, I believe Romans 9-11 should be read as a sort an apology for the breadth of God’s grace, not as an explanation of why some are elected for perdition. It is almost like a riff on Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats. It is telling Paul’s Jewish readers: you expected otherwise, but now God is welcoming the Gentiles! It’s a misreading of Romans 9-11 to take it as a statement of the narrowness of God’s election and the justice of double predestination. I am not, however, a NT scholar, so I’ll offer this in parenthesis and with a warning to take it with a grain of salt — and NT and Paul scholars, what do you think?)
It’s amazing to see the number of people who are sure they have the final definitions of Love and Justice, all conditioned from a world saturated with indulgence and envy. Could it be that the God of Justice, who *is* Love, might have a better idea?
Cheryl (#35)
Anyone who does NOT get emotional on this topic is inhumane or worse. Your heart beats in sync with the one from whom all fatherhood derives its name.
If God’s essence is love (and I believe it is), NOTHING God does or permits can be properly understood apart from His love. Love’s intent is always restorative, even where it seems to be merely punitive. The way Paul frames God’s wrath in Romans 1 is telling in that regard. The essence of “hell” is not that it is God’s creation but the necessary possibility of a love and sovereignty that allows for choices to be made apart from and against that love. The gates of the heavenly Jerusalem are and remain open – those who remain outside are there because of what they’ve chosen and continue to choose because of the false identity they cling to. Whether this will continue indefinitely is hard to say. I think there is enough biblical evidence to suggest that this state is so serious that it’s fair to describe it as an experience that seems unending like a spiral. But I think there is evidence just as strong to suggest that our choices and their consequences can never be so immune to a love that also never ends that evil could triumph indefinitely. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
What concerns me about those who strongly oppose universalism, is not that they don’t have good biblical arguments to back up their case on the serious consequences of our choices, but that it almost seems like they’d be disappointed if it turned out they were wrong. If God desires all to be saved, and if we were created in God’s image and with the purpose to be Christ-like, our desire and hope should be the same!
Dopderbeck #37
The Dutch Reformed pastor Jan Bonda published a thorough exegesis of Romans, and his commentary on chapters 9 through 11 reaches the same conclusions as you have, but, of course, with a lot more detail. Reading chapter 9 without chapters 10 and especially 11 leads to very faulty and limited images of God. There is a plan, people, and it cannot fail.
[Jan Bonda: The One Purpose of God]
Ben,
“I myself would refrain from asserting that infants go to heaven automatically, because I can’t see it anywhere in Scripture. All we can say is that God is good, merciful, and just, and therefore what He does in the case of infants is right.”
Why even discuss this then? Saying that God is whatever God is doesn’t seem very useful.
My recent study in Galatians brought me into contact with scholarship which explained Paul’s argument against the need for Gentile believers to adopt the law of Moses, based on the faith of Abraham, by comparing the law to a codicil attached to a legal contract. Such a document cannot alter the fundamental terms of the original contract, it was explained, only further detail them. The original ‘contract’, in that case, would be the Abrahamic covenant of faith.
I got to thinking about that later, and saw that the same argument could be applied to the first covenant between man and God – which spelled out the consequence “If you eat it, you will die.” In one sense everything else in Scripture is a codicil to that conclusion … spelling out the how and the why, as well as the entirely gracious and unexpected nature of God’s offer of release from the penalty called for under that covenant through faith in Christ.
For me that seemed to cement what I was picking up throughout Scripture – that the ultimate end of unredeemed humanity is death (annihilation, if you will). Those passages which describe judgment and punishment are certainly true – God will carry out His vengeance as He sees fit – but that punishment cannot endure forever, under the terms of that original covenant.
Jonathan (#41) — thanks for the reference! I haven’t read that book but as Bonda is a universalist I probably would disagree with him at some points. I’m not trying to advocate a universalist reading of Paul. All I want to say is that Paul’s argument in Romans is complex; parts of Paul’s argument clearly speak of judgment based on works freely taken by people; and Chapter 9, in context through ch. 11, seems to me to be more about the surprising breadth of God’s grace towards the Gentiles than about double predestination and widespread perdition.
If a more Dante-like hell scenario is true, then I believe Clark Pinnock’s verdict still stands unrefuted (from the viewpoint of a morality that is biblically informed):
“How can Christians possibly project a deity of such cruelty and vindictiveness whose ways include inflicting everlasting torture upon his creatures, however sinful they may have been? Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God, at least by any ordinary moral standards, and by the gospel itself.”
My problem with hell is not among the seven choices offered. My problem is this: what makes the so-called traditional view of hell real?
@Cheryl
The existence of hell is not what should grieve us. It’s the fact that we all deserve it that should make us sad. However, we also have to be able to have an intellectual discussion about what hell is, lest we make the decision emotionally.
God is loving. But it is also a fact that our sinful nature is not. Human suffering is the product of sin, and there has to be some accounting for that, be it on the cross or otherwise. But it certainly exists. People are suffering as we speak, and God is still sovereign. Hell is the acknowledgment that this state of affairs will continue.
A just parent will save his or her daughter from a moving vehicle. However, moving vehicles do end the lives of daughters, and that is not a judgment of the parent. So, too, a lifetime of sin leads to death.
@Josh
“What concerns me about those who strongly oppose universalism, is not that they don’t have good biblical arguments to back up their case on the serious consequences of our choices, but that it almost seems like they’d be disappointed if it turned out they were wrong.”
I haven’t really seen that in any of the discussions I’ve had around this issue. The imputation of motives is non-falsifiable, so it doesn’t really add to the discussion.
@kevin s:
Your right, it doesn’t add to the substance of the discussion. It’s still a fact that it troubles me personally. And I may very well be wrong in my impression. I was actually hoping to hear many affirmations to the contrary by those who would see themselves in that camp.
To answer the question, my biggest problem with the doctrine of hell settles in the question of how God will treat those who cannot willfully repent. How can you turn away from sin when you do not know what sin is?
On the other hand, if I assent to the idea that ignorance is bliss, then I must consider the possibility that the kingdom of heaven will be populated, principally, by those who have never even heard of God.
Further, and more troubling, this reasoning puts me in the position where I am better off smothering an infant than allowing it to grow and learn the gospel message. I can sort of set this aside and just obey God anyway, but this is intellectually dissatisfying to say the least.
For me, this is where Calvinists make the most compelling intellectual argument. Unconditional election renders the point moot. God will judge the heart, with the full knowledge of how people would have chosen, if given the opportunity.
This renders evangelism as a rote exercise in obedience, and I’m not sure how we get there from Christ’s great commission. However, I’m not sure I have a better answer to the conundrum.
Kevin S #47,
Yes, we deserve punishment, and we do not deserve eternal life. But where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. The fact that we deserve punishment does not make me sad. I’m rather relieved about that. People who mope around about their already forgiven sins are living in the past in a negative way. God says he will remember it no more. When we remember it, we should regret the harmful it effects it had on our life and the lives of others, but our overwhelming feeling should be one of gratitude.
also, I don’t think it is helpful to just use the word “Hell” when it is obvious that we are not all talking about the same thing. That much should be obvious by now. So do we all deserve hell? It depends on what you mean by hell.
@kevin s:
” … my biggest problem with the doctrine of hell settles in the question of how God will treat those who cannot willfully repent.”
You’re still assuming that condemnation is some sort of “reaction” of God to human behavior rather than calling out a reality that is already present in the behavior itself. I always thought that John 3:17-20 was very illuminating in that regard.
Josh, Where did you pull the Pinnock quote? Hate to admit it, but I agree.
#49
For me, this is where Calvinists make the most compelling intellectual argument. Unconditional election renders the point moot. God will judge the heart, with the full knowledge of how people would have chosen, if given the opportunity.
Does this really make sense to you? That God will judge according to what people would have chosen if they could choose, but they can’t choose, and if they could choose, they would choose evil because that’s the way people are because that’s the way God set things up to happen so that some will go to hell and others will go up, which demonstrates His glory and holiness. I’m sorry. That’s not an answer that satisfies.
Kevin #49,
Now for the fun. Let us hear Barth from CD 2.2:
“The man who is isolated over against God is as such rejected by God. But to be this man can only be by the godless man’s own choice. The witness of the community of God to every individual man consists in this: that this choice of the godless man is void; that he belongs eternally to Jesus Christ and therefore is not rejected but elected by God in Jesus Christ; that the rejection which he deserves on account of his perverse choice is borne and cancelled by Jesus Christ; and that he is appointed to eternal life with God on the basis of the righteous, divine decision. the promise of his election determines that as a member of the community he himself shall be a bearer of its witness to the whole world. And the revelation of his rejection can only determine him to believe in Jesus Christ as the One by whom it has been borne and cancelled.”
Evangelism is the telling of the world about the God in the paragraph above.
kevin s(#49), you said: Further, and more troubling, this reasoning puts me in the position where I am better off smothering an infant than allowing it to grow and learn the gospel message.
I respond: I’ve heard people criticize any Christian view of judgment on this basis, but I don’t think on the whole that it’s a fair criticism. You wouldn’t be better off — you’d be alot worse off because you’d have committed murder. As for the baby — the Bible in general presents life as a being a good gift from God. By depriving the baby of life, you’re depriving it of this good. The baby, therefore, is not better off — particularly if the baby, upon growing to maturity, has the opportunity to know God. With respect to “heathen” babies — if you’re in a position to smother the baby, you’re in a position to help raise it to know God. But, with respect to heathen babies who will never hear — maybe it’s a fair point that if they have no chance to respond to God at all, they’d have been better off having died in infancy — which is a reason, in my mind, hard restrictivism is problematic.
You also said: God will judge the heart, with the full knowledge of how people would have chosen, if given the opportunity.
I respond: this isn’t really Calvinism, it’s Molinism. A number of contemporary evangelical apologists are Molinists (W.L. Craig, Paul Copan). But for hard-core Calvinists, Molinism is a heresy, because it conditions God’s sovereign choice on a human decision — even if it’s a decision that never actually was exercised.
@ Taylor G:
“The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” Criswell Theological Review 4 (1990-Spring), Pages 246-47.
I don’t agree with annihilationism but I agree with the quote.
I know this is heretical, but has anyone considered in their Biblical analysis of Hell that perhaps the Johannine works and Revelation could be argued to be erroneously included into the cannon as scripture? The Johannine works particularly seem to me to represent the least historically reliable witness to Jesus and his teachings. And Revelation, well…more on that later if anyone wants to have a conversation on this.
JustinB #20 – Good observation about the rich man’s character not changing when he arrived in hades. But I say to myself, he had just arrived and hadn’t yet seen past Abraham. It’s not the end of the story yet for this fellow. I don’t think Jesus was primarily aiming to teach about the afterlife in this parable, though. Which means we probably shouldn’t assume that a person in the “fire” (of God’s jealous, loving gaze, as per George MacDonald?) won’t change after another few hours, or centuries….
Justin and Mark (##20 and 58) — but his character did change — he wanted to go back to warn his brothers! Suddenly he began to think of someone other than himself!
In any event, it’s dangerous to use this parable as anything other than a parable. It isn’t a discourse on the nature of Hell. (Technically it wouldn’t even be discussing “Hell” but some kind of “intermediate state,” even if it somehow were more than parabolic and had to be harmonized with Rev. 20).
Tim #57,
You beg the question as to what history really is. Now do we put the Johannine literature on the stand and be its judge or will we let it have its way with us? When we say things like “historically reliable”, are we not saying “this is really not my kind of book”? The Johannine literature pressed upon us world where heaven and earth are real, overlapping realities. If we have swallowed Kant hook, line, and sinker, then John’s Gospel and Revelation are going to offend us, because heaven is either a projection or something we cannot touch. But I think we can trust the Johannine literature when it says to us, “Let me tell you how things really are, not how they seem.”
To Alan in post #54 who quoted Barth-Amen and Amen!
Lots of good points being brought up. My two cents:
1)Theodicy. Hell in the traditional sense is only a multiplier of horrendous evils. This will not do. The answer to the hells of this world cannot be an eternal Auschwitz.
Is not the final purpose of Justice to “set things right?” I do not believe in such a thing as all-justice. Justice is a servant of peace.
-to throw out a title, Marilyn McCord Adams really shook me out of a dogmatic slumber in her book on “horrendous evils” concerning these matters.
2) Barth is right. Jesus died and suffered hell for all mankind. Hell has been defeated.
dopderbeck, #59 – Kenneth Bailey changed my mind on whether the rich man had changed. He points out that even in hades he expects Lazarus to be his servant or go-fer, and that his concern is only about his own brothers, which in the Middle East is about equivalent to thinking about oneself. “Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes,” IVP.
@Tim #57,
I don’t see anything in John’s writings that diverges significantly from Jesus’ statements on hell in the Synoptic gospels. The issue for me is not the appearance of heresy or that the canonic question has to be off limits. If I understand Jesus correctly, “hell” is very much a present reality and not just a future threat, and when I look around me and watch the news, I see that perspective being confirmed every single day.
“Does this really make sense to you? That God will judge according to what people would have chosen if they could choose, but they can’t choose, and if they could choose, they would choose evil because that’s the way people are because that’s the way God set things up to happen so that some will go to hell and others will go up, which demonstrates His glory and holiness.”
The other options are:
Universalism, by which the Bible refers to a condemnation that applies to nobody. The only argument for this position is that the Bible is relatively light on references to any sort of hell. I find the argument from relative silence completely unpersuasive.
Salvation for all who have never heard the gospel, which leaves us with the perverse incentive to smother babies, and a kingdom of people who have spent their lives worshiping false gods.
Hell as a sort of purgatory, which gives people the option to repent. Contrary to the assertions here, I don’t see how this squares with the parable of the rich man. He wasn’t even permitted to warn his family of their fate after death. Why would he be eager to do so if all he had to do to avert his own condemnation was to repent? This is a very strange reading of the text.
Heaven and hell co-existing together, an idea for which there is no real scriptural support, and which negates the concept of heaven entirely.
The issue for me has been squaring God’s own goodness with a portrayal of him that makes him out to be evil but calls that evil “justice”. This was an insurmountable inconsistency, along with God supposedly loving us but at the same time having to punish us. And another: if God must punish, then that which requires God to punish (“justice”, “holiness”, “law”, “magnitude of offence”, etc.) is itself “bigger” than God, makes God subject to some kind of neecessity, “makes” God have to do something, and is actually the *real* “god”.
These inconsistencies and all the problems Baker discusses seem to me to be solved when one moves out of the paradigm of Christ taking our punishment on the cross, and into the paradigm of the cross being the expression of the reality of God’s love and forgiveness, and the entry point of Jesus into death, which he demolishes from the inside out.
I see nothing “penal” about this. The cross is about Liberation from death and enslavement to sin, which is why the crucifixion took place at Passover. The cross reflects the Jewish sacrificial system only as the latter was restorative to community, not as any kind of punishment. I believe “hilasterion” is the place where humans meet God in the heart of worship and communion, where there is the giving and exchange of Life (“blood”), where on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, death is revealed to have been covered up (kipporah) or smothered by life lived in the grace of the Holy Spirit poured out on Pentecost, as we keep repenting, keep turning.
The urgency of evangelization comes with the announcement that Christ is risen from the dead: this was where all the preachers in the book of Acts were heading. We are no longer subject to death and the sin that feeds our fear of death. Therefore, we can live as the humans God made us to be, with his own life (Holy Spirit/working of grace)inside us helping us to “work out our healing/salvation”, to turn and keep turning (metanoia) toward life, and becoming more like him as we do – with all the ups and downs and starts and stops of life – confident of God’s abiding love, and that Jesus will one day put everything to rights – and letting God alone be the judge of my own, or anyone else’s, “progress”.
What’s the advantage to being a Christian now? We get to begin this healing, to begin living “the life that is really life” (Willard’s translation of zoe aionion), to begin the process of becoming like Jesus, especially in love, all the sooner.
Dana
All these discussions involving even the hypothetical outcome of smothering babies because of a potentially guaranteed salvific outcome, strike me as completely absurd and a confirmation that much of our evangelical understanding of heaven and hell is completely off from the start.
What if the only judgment that truly mattered was God’s original judgment of mankind as “very good”? What if God never changed his mind about us even after we chose to explore what it means to know evil? What if salvation is nothing but a realization that grace has always been true, and a realization that hell is a self-constructed false reality that exists because we reject grace and seek validation elsewhere? What if Christ died not to change God’s mind about us but to confirm that God’s love is undefeatable even at the point of the greatest evil imaginable?
@ Dana: Amen and amen!
Kevin #64,
There most certainly is a condemnation that applies to everybody. “God has imprisoned all in disobedience”. But Paul continues “so that he may be merciful to all.” To say there is a condemnation that applies to nobody makes the cross into nothing. Jesus judges all and also takes the judgment of all. All matters of justice have already been settled at the cross. To believe otherwise is to have a low esteem of Jesus Christ. To characterize Universalism as something that makes God out to be a softie is to misunderstand it entirely and to actually think very little of the sin of the world.
For those who haven’t heard–again, look at the cross and ask, “Is this really sufficient for everybody?” Do I really believe that, as 1 John tells us, that Jesus is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world”? Does the gospel require response? If so, how does someone with autism get saved?
It is beneath the good news to think that justice requires a mercy-less condemnation. Those who showed up with five minutes left on the clock will be compensated the same as those who worked all day.
kevin s, #64 – “Universalism, by which the Bible refers to a condemnation that applies to nobody. The only argument for this position is that the Bible is relatively light on references to any sort of hell. I find the argument from relative silence completely unpersuasive.” –
Gregory MacDonald’s “The Evangelical Universalist” and Thomas Talbott’s “The Inescapable Love of God,” advance very strong positive arguments for the ultimate salvation of all through faith in Christ. I found them to be quite thorough.
@Josh
“All these discussions involving even the hypothetical outcome of smothering babies because of a potentially guaranteed salvific outcome, strike me as completely absurd and a confirmation that much of our evangelical understanding of heaven and hell is completely off from the start.”
You aren’t really reading what I’m writing. I concede that it’s absurd, which is my problem with this line of thinking.
@Alan
“To say there is a condemnation that applies to nobody makes the cross into nothing.”
Correct, and that’s the problem of denying eternal condemnation. Why would Jesus warn of condemnation to hell when there is no hell to which one can be condemned?
“Those who showed up with five minutes left on the clock will be compensated the same as those who worked all day.”
Right. The universalist position suggests that people will be paid who didn’t show up for work at all.
Kevin #70,
You say: “Right. The universalist position suggests that people will be paid who didn’t show up for work at all.”
Not necessarily; it simply suggests that there may still be time left on the clock after death.
Alan K (#60),
“You beg the question as to what history really is. Now do we put the Johannine literature on the stand and be its judge…?”
First of all, “begging the question” is a term for a logical fallacy that I did not engage in. I stated that the Johannine works seemed less historically reliable than the synoptics. As in, the events they depict don’t seem to have as great of warrant for considering to accurately reflect historical fact (as in such-and-such really was said, or such-and-such really happened).
As far as whether or not we can judge these books for reliability? Umm…yes please.
Josh Mueller (#63),
Interesting point. I’ll look into it. Can you say the same for Revelation?
Kevin,
I think you are missing the point. The condemnation of all humanity fell upon Jesus Christ. Is there a problem with God being merciful? Do we desire our own faithfulness to privilege us with God?
Regarding hell, when Jesus speaks of it in the gospels he by no means is referring to a post-mortem separation from God. Jesus is warning Israel to change course or be destroyed by Rome.
I can see validity in all seven of these problems with the traditional view of Hell and could probably add a few more. I think Jonathan(#32) hit the nail on the head when he said that Hell will be for purification.Gods purpose for Hell is not retribution or destruction. I love the William Barclay quote about the word translated “punishment” in Matt 25:46:
“in all Greek literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment… It was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of vines to make them grow better… Eternal punishment is literally that kind of remedial punishment which it befits God to give and which only God can give.” [A Spiritual Biography p. 66]
Why is it so easy for people to simply ignore that fact?
In addition to Sharon Bakers book I would highly recommend “Hope Beyond Hell” by Gerry Beauchemin (www.hopebeyondhell.net) and “What Does the Bible Really Say About Hell?” by Randy Klassen. Both excellent studies on Hell and the Character of God.
@Doperdeck and Mark Farmer,
I agree with you both that this parable isn’t meant to tell us everything we need to know about hell. My question instead focuses on the state of the rich man’s heart. Does that change? I’m not sure.
His request to have someone sent to his brothers may not be a sincere plea so much as it could be saying “At least give them the chance you never gave me.” In other words, maybe he’s blaming Abraham and those in paradise for not doing enough on his behalf!
Considering that he wanted poor Lazarus to enter hell in order to bring him water, I have doubts about the rich man’s change of character. A softened heart wouldn’t want anyone to suffer torment. Instead, the rich man wants Lazarus to do just that, all for the purpose of serving him.
But regardless of what you think of my take on that passage (and if Scot or anyone else has time, I’d love your feedback), I’m still curious: Is there anything in Scripture to suggest a person in hell would cease their rebellion against God? Would such a thing still be possible?
Oops … sorry, Dopderbeck, I got your name wrong before.
One more thing, sorry: Before, when I wrote about Lazarus entering “hell,” I mean “Hades.” Ok, I’m done posting for the moment.
#76
Is there anything in Scripture to suggest a person in hell would cease their rebellion against God? Would such a thing still be possible?
Phil 2:10 comes to mind: …that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth,and THOSE UNDER THE EARTH, 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
I’m sure that universalists could come up with other examples.
“Regarding hell, when Jesus speaks of it in the gospels he by no means is referring to a post-mortem separation from God. Jesus is warning Israel to change course or be destroyed by Rome.”
This is not at all a plain reading of the text. He talks about removing body parts to avoid sin. This is obviously figurative, but serves to make a point about something more than submission to Rome.
Regarding Phil 2:10, everyone will confess that Christ is Lord because they will have no compelling alternative. They will have already been judged by the Lord. Satan knows Christ is Lord, but that certainly hasn’t ceased his rebellion.
@Kevin
O.k. let’s try this again:
I’m a parent and I tell my daughter that she better not steal my money (I’m trying to think of something that “deserves a punishment” here) but she does. I’ve told her that the consequence of stealing from me is that I will no longer trust her and if I can’t trust her she must find another place to live and a different family. It doesn’t matter WHY she stole, how she was feeling when she stole, whether she has a psychiatric disorder that would impair her judgment, or anything else. I’ve made a rule and that’s that.
HOW can my daughter and I have an “unconditionally loving” relationship when she KNOWS there is something she can do that will cause me to disown her? Haven’t I made it impossible for her to feel unconditional love from me the second I voiced the conditions? Haven’t I made it impossible for there to be genuine relationship between us and for her to have genuine feelings of love and trust the instant she discovered the “strings?”
You could say my stealing example is extreme or find a way that it doesn’t work as an analogy. O.k., fine. It’s not a perfect analogy.
So let’s go back to God and me, which is the point here, anyhow. There’s a loving God who, according to Christian teaching knew this whole thing would go down like this from minute one. In fact, he dreams this up. Of all the possible scenarios he could come up with (infinite numbers of them, many we can’t even imagine), this is the “magnum opus.” He’s had eternity past to plan this thing, and this is the way he’s decided on. Christians believe that the story behind the story is that this God really wanted a close, personal relationship with human beings but he wanted them to pick that relationship, so he picked the perfect plan with which to accomplish this end…right?
So he sets this whole thing up, including a heaven and a hell. He sets it all up knowing there’s is going to be a Jesus, knowing there is going to be a sacrifice made, knowing that not everyone will hear about or understand it, knowing that means that he will send some people to heaven and some to hell. He sets this up knowing that this will mean that relationship between those people sent to hell and himself will be impossible. He sets this up, knowing that there will be a separation between he and these people he supposedly is LONGING for relationship with, not just for a day or a decade, but for all eternity. And he’s o.k. with this?
This is a loving God? Come on…I am a more loving parent than this God is. I am a more loving friend, sister, daughter and wife than this God. I will never give up on anyone I love “coming around,” no matter how terrible of choices they made, no matter how much they hurt me. If you are a parent you know what I mean when I say that my child could actually pick up a knife and stab me to death, and if there is life on the other side of this one, I would find the child, hold them and tell them I love them, before they even get a chance to apologize. I LOVE THEM. It doesn’t matter what they do or don’t do. I may have emotions about what they do/don’t do, but my love doesn’t change. I don’t EVER want to “punish” them! It doesn’t matter what they do. I would stand between them and punishment every time.
Furthermore, I would do ANYTHING to have a good relationship with those I love. I would NOT stand between them and a learning experience/discipline, but that’s because I have hope that on the other side of that learning is a GREATER possibility for relationship. But hell is a great big full-stop/period at the end of the sentence. There’s no hope for restored relationship on the other side. I don’t EVER want to set up conditions for a relationship with those I love. You can tell me I’m a sinner and I love imperfectly, that in fact because I’m no longer a Christian, that I’m “incapable” of love. It is simply not true. In fact, I’m better an unconditional love than the Christian God is.
Part of the delight and joy of being loved is knowing that it is unconditional. If you’re going to tell me I’m supposed to believe that that is not a “good” desire or that God’s conditional love is somehow superior, I’d say you’ve never experienced loving or being loved unconditionally.
If God made me, how is it that I can love unconditionally and God doesn’t? I think I’ve just explained why God’s love IS conditional. It’s the definition of “conditional.” Anytime you say, “I’ll kill you or else,” or “I’ll sever relationship with you or else,” etc. you have automatically shown your love to be conditional. It’s an “if…then.” This is terribly ironic when the whole “point” is supposedly a “right relationship” between man and God. That’s the whole point of this drama God set in motion, right? Then why would God do the one thing that screws relationships up more quickly and more painfully and more completely than he other one thing: “if…then…”
I’m genuinely curious how anyone can explain how the Christian God/Jesus/heaven/hell scenario is NOT an “if…then.”
There are a number of big reasons why I’m no longer an evangelical Christian and this is one of the main ones. I’ve been loved unconditionally. I’ve been loved conditionally. I’ve loved conditionally and I’ve loved unconditionally. You only have to feel unconditional love one time, coming and going, to know that that is what life is all about. I just don’t buy that I am able to love (and was born with a longing to be loved!) in a way that God can’t/won’t.
Last question: if God created us in his image, and he loves conditionally, how is it that I am capable of loving and being loved unconditionally? How can there BE unconditional love? It’s very odd to me that when you unwrap evangelical Christianity, you find a creation that is better at loving than its Creator. I don’t know how it makes sense that a relational God would undermine relationship with those he supposedly wants relationship with by setting up the “if…then…” system.
#80
Confession as Lord should not be seen as intellectual assent, but as a changing of allegiance.
Romans10:9 (Same author so we assume Paul is using the term “confess as Lord” in the same general way)that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10:10 For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
@ Tim #73
The only thing that seemed contradictory to me in Revelation to the usual portrayal of Christ’s character and way of overcoming is the rather violent imagery of the returning Christ in chapter 19. It used to make not much sense until a friend pointed out the fact that the sword comes out of his mouth (a typical symbol of the word of God) and that the blood on His garment is not the blood of His enemies but most likely points to His own shed blood (parallel to other images of Christ in Revelation).
@Josh
You wrote:
“What if the only judgment that truly mattered was God’s original judgment of mankind as “very good”? What if God never changed his mind about us even after we chose to explore what it means to know evil? What if salvation is nothing but a realization that grace has always been true, and a realization that hell is a self-constructed false reality that exists because we reject grace and seek validation elsewhere? What if Christ died not to change God’s mind about us but to confirm that God’s love is undefeatable even at the point of the greatest evil imaginable?”
Now THAT makes some sense.
@Cheryl #81:
I hear what you are saying. And I agree it doesn’t add up in the traditional evangelical view, no matter whether one chooses a more Arminian or Reformed perspective.
I’d recommend Jonathan Brink’s “Discovering the God Imagination” for an entirely different way of reading and understanding the biblical narrative. It just came out 3 months ago.
Thanks, Josh. I’ll check it out.
Unfortunately, I was away from my computer yesterday while all the fun was going on here on Scot’s Blog.
I found it interesting all of the discussion of the Johannine literature when in fact, with the exception of the Revelation (which a good many scholars believe was written by a different John) the Gospel of John as well as the Johannine epistles say next to nothing about Hell. As for the Revelation, the case can be easily made that The Lake of Fire does not assert eternal conscious torment once you examine the text carefully.
I also love all of the references to the Parable of Lazarus and The Rich Man, a favorite proof-text for those advocating eternal hellfire. I am convinced that this parable has absolutely nothing to do with Hell, but is instead an indictment of the Pharisees and the High Priest Caiaphas. A careful reading of the parable along with a bit of history from Josephus clearly indicates that the Rich Man in the parable was none other than Caiaphas himself. Lazarus was, well Lazarus, the same one who Jesus raised from the dead in John’s Gospel and of whom the Pharisees wanted to kill all over again.
I’ve been blogging about Hell for the last few weeks and am just now getting to the Gospel accounts. Feel free to drop by and give your two cents at http://fromdamascustoemmaus.com/ .
And a great big thanks to Dr. McKnight for introducing Sharon Baker’s book. I will be adding it to my library.
Randy,
Can you elaborate on how the parable is an indictment of Caiaphas? I’ve never heard that interpretation and was hoping you could give some detail.
Justin (#76) asked: Is there anything in Scripture to suggest a person in hell would cease their rebellion against God?
I respond: the descent into Hell tradition (1 Peter 3:19-20, 4:6) as well as Eph. 4:8-10 (a gloss on Ps. 68:18) and Zech. 9:11 and a number of other similar OT references have often been seen as suggesting that Christ’s descent into Hell freed some people from Hell.
Let’s be clear that this need not imply repentance in Hell itself. I like D’Costa’s approach — maybe it implies the Spirit was at work during their lives in some people who cognitively did not know Christ, but who then see the risen Christ and recognize him.
I really believe it’s a shame that we’ve lost this tradition. Here’s how one ancient homilist, John Chrysostom, expressed it:
He that was taken by death has annihilated it!
He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!
He embittered it when it tasted his flesh! And anticipating this Isaiah exclaimed: “Hades was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions”.
It was embittered, for it was abolished!
It was embittered, for it was mocked!
It was embittered, for it was purged!
It was embittered, for it was despoiled!
It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!
It took a body and came upon God!
It took earth and encountered heaven!
It took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen!
O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!
Justin (#88,
The Rich Man in the parable can be none other than Caiaphas. There are a number of clues in the parable that any first century Jew would have immediately picked up on be-telling his identity.
The first clue is the Rich Man’s being clothed in purple and fine linen. Exodus 28:5-8, 15, 31, 39 all indicate the High Priest as being clothed in “blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and fine linen”.
The next clue is the five brothers. Josephus records in Antiquities, Book XX, chapter 9, section i, p.42 that Caiaphas, who is recorded as being Annas’ (the other high priest mentioned)son-in-law in John 18:13, had five brothers-in-law. “”Now the report goes, that this elder Annas proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons, who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and he had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. . .”
The final clue is at the end of the parable. “they would not be convinced even if someone were to rise from the dead (v.31)” We read in John 12:10 that “the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him”.
I hope this answers your question. I plan on writing an entire post on this subject in a week or two and will go into more detail.
Cheryl @84,
That is the teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy.
dopderbeck @89,
Eastern Orthodoxy hasn’t lost it.
Ok, I’ll be quiet now, before I become an annoying convert.
Dana
@Dana
I’m confused…what is the teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy? What I’m saying I experienced Christianity as? Or what I’m saying makes sense to me? You can email me if you like: cherylensomdack@gmail.com.
@Randy Olds (#90),
That’s an interesting take! I’m reviewing the chapter now and notice that this parable follows Jesus’ critique of the Pharisees, who were “lovers of money.” Do you think it’s possible that Jesus’ parable about the rich man applies also to them?
I believe that the indictment was indeed on the Pharisees in general and on Caiaphas in particular. However, I do not believe that it had anything to do with “love of money” but rather the hypocritical views that the self-righteous Pharisees had. The Pharisees, much like many sectarian Christians today, believed that they were the only ones “going to Heaven” and that most other Jews weren’t “good enough” to have a share in the afterlife. Lazarus, because of his leprosy, would have been one of those of whom the Pharisees would have thought had no inheritance in the afterlife.
The preceding series of parables found in Luke 14-16 are all either directed at the Pharisees or with them in their presence. It should be noted however that Caiaphas himself was a Sadducee, one of those who denied the resurrection of the dead.
There is a very large amount of underlying tension surrounding Jesus’ telling of this parable that many have simply overlooked over the years, instead simply claiming it as a “proof-text” for Hell, which is very unfortunate. The real message that Jesus was trying to get across has been lost in translation by those who simply want to use this parable to promote Hell.
“Confession as Lord should not be seen as intellectual assent, but as a changing of allegiance.”
So, on one side, we have people claiming that everyone goes to heaven because God requires us to use our intellect. On the other side, we are not permitted to use the intellect.
“O.k. let’s try this again:”
Let’s do.
“I’m a parent and I tell my daughter that she better not steal my money (I’m trying to think of something that “deserves a punishment” here) but she does.”
So she deserves a punishment.
“I’ve told her that the consequence of stealing from me is that I will no longer trust her and if I can’t trust her she must find another place to live and a different family.”
Which is a punishment.
“It doesn’t matter WHY she stole, how she was feeling when she stole, whether she has a psychiatric disorder that would impair her judgment, or anything else. I’ve made a rule and that’s that.”
If she has a psychiatric disorder, and you have made a rule independent of that disorder, then you are a bad parent. You should first address the psychiatric disorder.
“HOW can my daughter and I have an “unconditionally loving” relationship when she KNOWS there is something she can do that will cause me to disown her?”
If she has a psychiatric disorder, she knows nothing of the sort. That is the definition of a psychiatric disorder.
“Haven’t I made it impossible for her to feel unconditional love from me the second I voiced the conditions?”
Disowning a child doesn’t constitute not loving, particularly as it relates to psychiatric disorders. She needs to be under the care of a physician, not a parent.
“Haven’t I made it impossible for there to be genuine relationship between us and for her to have genuine feelings of love and trust the instant she discovered the “strings?””
I’m sure many psychiatric patients feel precisely as much. It’s a tough decision. This isn’t getting you where you think it does.
“You could say my stealing example is extreme or find a way that it doesn’t work as an analogy. O.k., fine. It’s not a perfect analogy.”
By introducing insanity into your analogy, you rendered it absurd.
“There’s a loving God who, according to Christian teaching knew this whole thing would go down like this from minute one.”
So say the Calvinists.
“In fact, he dreams this up. Of all the possible scenarios he could come up with (infinite numbers of them, many we can’t even imagine), this is the “magnum opus.” He’s had eternity past to plan this thing, and this is the way he’s decided on.”
Correct.
“He sets it all up knowing there’s is going to be a Jesus, knowing there is going to be a sacrifice made, knowing that not everyone will hear about or understand it, knowing that means that he will send some people to heaven and some to hell.”
We’re tracking, yes.
“He sets this up knowing that this will mean that relationship between those people sent to hell and himself will be impossible.”
Correct.
“He sets this up, knowing that there will be a separation between he and these people he supposedly is LONGING for relationship with, not just for a day or a decade, but for all eternity. And he’s o.k. with this?”
No, he is not okay with this. He sent his son to be slaughtered so that it would not happen. Many refuse to acknowledge him even still. If they still refuse him, and refuse his gift. Which, again, his gift is HIS ONLY CHILD. Then, yes, he’s okay with rejecting them.
“This is a loving God? Come on…I am a more loving parent than this God is.”
No, you are not. You would not sacrifice your child for someone who was completely disinterested in that sacrifice… Nothing you have written here suggests that you are that type of person. Everything you have written, to the jot and tittle, suggests precisely the opposite.
Your compassion for your friends and relatives is commendable, but if you literally killed your daughter on their behalf, and they were indifferent to that sacrifice, you would hate them. That is not an imperfection on your part, but reason.
Our God is capable of anger, which is not to be confused with evil.
@Randy Olds,
If I can shift gears for a moment, I think this statement of yours …
“The Pharisees, much like many sectarian Christians today, believed that they were the only ones “going to Heaven” and that most other Jews weren’t “good enough” to have a share in the afterlife.”
… isn’t fair to many Christians who hold to a doctrine of hell. Many, if not pretty much all, believers I’ve encountered believe that they’re going to Heaven because of what Christ did on their behalf, not because they’re good enough.
Also, I don’t think a lot of them are “promoting” hell as if it’s a good thing. It’s the very notion of hell that compels them to talk about it, even if it puts them at odds with their listeners (or for that matter, fellow Christians).
“A careful reading of the parable along with a bit of history from Josephus clearly indicates that the Rich Man in the parable was none other than Caiaphas himself.”
In what way is your reading more “careful” than that of the majority of Christians? What element of history illuminates the more careful reading?
@kevin
I’m sorry I had an attitude earlier, Kevin. It felt like you were condescending and I responded in a defensive way.
Can we just talk about what this is really about: is God’s love conditional or unconditional?
Let’s just leave my imperfect analogy out. I’m not a parent who would ignore a psychiatric disorder. Multiple people in my life are plagued by psychiatric disorders…that’s why I brought that up, but I should have just spoken from my heart. I’m sorry. I’m dropping my defensiveness and my stupid analogy. If we were sitting across from one another in a coffee shop, you’d see the sincerity in my eyes and know this comes from deep, deep inside. I am not just being difficult. I’m speaking from 30+ years of life, great pain and a desire to be absolutely honest. I’m just me. Please just hear my heart.
You said, “Your compassion for your friends and relatives is commendable, but if you literally killed your daughter on their behalf, and they were indifferent to that sacrifice, you would hate them. That is not an imperfection on your part, but reason.”
Kevin, I would not kill my child and neither would you. This is PRECISELY one of the reasons I’m not a Christian. I AM a parent and I would not set up a system on purpose that would mean killing my own child and/or billions of the people I love/created/supposedly want a relationship with. Neither would you. If you or I were a parent who acted like this we would have our children removed from our care and for good reason. To do so would make us not human. The deepest parts of us cry our for outlandish senseless mercy, over-the-top grace, extravagant love and many, many chances, even for those who seem hopeless.
The God who sacrifices his son is not loving, especially when you consider that this is not a parent making the best of a bad situation but an all-powerful God who could have orchestrated the universe in infinite number of ways but picked this one. Saying this God is “good” when his actions prove otherwise doesn’t make it so. I KNOW you are not a parent who would have children, knowing you would send them to eternal punishment/torment. I’m not, either. It’s not human. There is no way it’s divine.
I just can’t believe that I was created by a God to love in such a way that he can’t/won’t. Unconditional love is without condition. Period. And it flows out of me naturally. There is no, “if….then…” So a God who loves me with a conditional love and creates people only to send them to hell is not a God I can get on board with. The desire/ability to love/be loved unconditionally is what proves that I was not created by a conditional God.
If you or I ever feel about our children the way the Christian God is said to feel about his creation, I think we can both agree we should have those precious children removed from our homes.
You are not this sort of person, Kevin, and neither am I. We don’t need to argue. It’s silly. We are both human. We both long to lay everything down, be caught on our worst behavior…and loved anyway.
We know that we have the ability to love someone else this way. This is how we can tell: we both know that if we showed up at the “half-way” point and found someone else standing there, their eyes filled with love and acceptance of the REAL us, we would rush forward and love unconditionally. We both know that because we long to find that other at the half-way point, waiting for us, we are able to BE that other, not just waiting at the half-way point but stepping over it and running toward the other person before we know that they will love us back. That is terrifying but we KNOW, deep down, that that is precisely what real love is. We have this in us. We long for it…given and received. How can that be in us if it is not in our creator?
Again, please forgive my attitude. I’m looking past yours, too.
That’s not who we are.
@ Kevin,
I perhaps should have used a better quantifier that “many”. What I was primarily referring to are those sectarian Christians (i.e. sects) that are found primarily within some strains of Fundamentalism and are predominantly hyper-Calvinists that assume that they are the only ones going to Heaven and that the majority of the “other Christians” are apostate and headed straight for Hell. It should be remembered that the Pharisees themselves were a sect withing Judaism during Jesus’ day and probably did not represent the views of the majority of Jewry at the time (although they did have a lot of power within Judaism).
@ Kevin,
My views about Caiaphas are by no means unique. The postulation that Caiaphas being the Rich Man in the parable have been floating along for a long time. There have been a number of article suggesting just that by a number of respected NT scholars for some time. It is probably not the majority view, but the majority view is not always the right view.
Sorry it took me so long to respond. Been busy and just now got back to the discussion.
@Cheryl
I didn’t sense any attitude on your part, and I apologize for coming across as condescending. Most of the people who post here are Christians, and your posts didn’t make much sense from a Christian perspective. I now understand your viewpoint, even if I disagree with it.
@Randy
The majority view is not always the right view, but it is similarly false to assert that the minority view constitutes a more careful reading.